Your gripes with CoC II

[The Observer]

Like I'm always the "good parent" when it comes to Kiyoko and Kinu's conversations.

I'm 90% of the time against being a deceitful jerk.

The MC will even go on to state our standing with some NPCs without warning suddenly dropping an "I love you" to Brint like the fifth time we fucked.

To quote Wsan: if the player progresses the content far enough, it's reasonable for the author to assume some kind of investment in the content from the player. Is there necessarily so, even if you visit Brint every night? No, not really. But there's a reasonable expectation that the player might be assumed to be enamoured of Brint.

If the player progresses the content to that point, I generally assume that the player is interested in being a decent parent, because otherwise you wouldn't even be there in the first place.

The second thing is basically that most of the crew is simply uninterested in writing mustache-twirling, comically villainous content. You can see it in the simple number of dead ends on the rail tracks where you get your corrupt good boy points and the content ends there -- the hive, the orc camp, Bubbles' upcoming merc expack, centaur village, Quin's introduction, etc, etc, etc.

some minor inconsistencies in behavior

More an inevitability when you get multiple writers penning prose for the same character; discrepancies always happen. Don't read too much into it.

that there's gonna be more unlockable personalities that will make things flow just a tad bit smoother.

No, there won't.

 

[Animalistic]

While I understand where people are coming from, the authors are just unable to really delve into what every player will feel in each situation. Since well, they have idea for what content they want to write and it is better for them to focus on it. To make one path as fulfilling as possible is in a lot of casses better than to make multyply half assed ones.


Lets take two companions that people posted. For example Brint. The first time I met him and talked to him I though him of as a bro type of character. And that is what he is when you are talking to him. And I did find him sexually attractive, so I though, "Nice". So I went with the assumption that the sex was going to be like that between two fuck buddies, same way you do in real life. But when in my second sexual encounter my character went in all "lovely dovey" with him, I felt so removed from the act. It was nicely writen, but at same time, it was just not something I signed myself for. So, while yes, It does suck that I personally lost a sexual partner, from what I am seeing, most people are fine with it. So I can not say that Wsan did anything wrong there. Just conflict of interests.


There are other companions like Kiyoko and Arona that are more sincere in what kind of relationship they expect from you. With former, it is probably most blatant. With it having whole mural warning you with what you are getting yourself into, with you only being able to sex her, and thus recruit her, with phaulic object. And ending up with a kid as consequence. Now, while yes, it does suck that game assumes that you are going to be a loving parent no matter what. Even if you ignore Kinu like rest of your children (Kiyokos or not) if you so as chose when you have a option. But at same time, Kiyoko content is already filled with so many caveats. That I think if you are not on with the board after from beggining to the end, it is just not for you. Especially if you want to play as corrupt champion. That is nor really a good thing, but what can you do.


So my advice to you is just to cut your looses and ignore that side of content if you are not into it. Like I did with some of the companions. Not everything is going to appeal to everyone.

Bubbles' upcoming merc expack

I hope that it is something really bad. Good God, I do want to screw those guys over for all shit they give me. At least once.

 

[sumgai]

That's because the previous Champ, current Champ and Steele aren't your character. You (the player) are the brain parasite guiding their actions and choices, not necessarily their opinions and passions. Big dicks may or may not interest you, but it sure does interest all of the player characters. Also, the player characters morals will likely be slightly different, owning to growing up in rather alien cultures. A Bronze Age person and a Modern person would have very different sensibilities at the very least.

 

[Animalistic]

The second thing is basically that most of the crew is simply uninterested in writing mustache-twirling, comically villainous content. You can see it in the simple number of dead ends on the rail tracks where you get your corrupt good boy points and the content ends there -- the hive, the orc camp, Bubbles' upcoming merc expack, centaur village, Quin's introduction, etc, etc, etc.

I still have no clue how corruption will play out when it comes to our character and rest of the game. Since, while I know that corruption does not necessarily mean evil, that is more about lacking empathy. I am not sure exactly what that entails. And I do not have many current examples that point me to end goal of all this. Like, are we through the game going to be able make decisions that are more selfish in nature? Or help Kas or Taulos in/directly? I heard Evergreen has some skeletons in the closet. Are we going to help her stuff more inside? And how will all that interact with rest of the game? I am only aware of being able to corrupt the companions and wayford being our own little slice of corrupted land if we chose so.


Now sure, I do not expect the champion to act like "mustache twirling villain" as the Observer put it. Since that would be overly cartoonish and I would like to think that our character is more subtle than that. Even with that, while you all bring valid reason why you would not support such extreme content related to us being a corrupt ( I do still apreaciate those options even if they are just there to be there). I do not know what you want that route (if there is ever gonna be one to begin with) to be. What are the goals and all that?

 

[Tenalc13]

I understand the problem that some people do not like it when the PC acts on its own and not on the order of the player. But on the other hand, there has not yet been a game where the PC dialogues were spelled out so that they were interesting and corresponded to what the player wants to say.
For example:
1. Original sin 2 - diological options do not say anything specific, just general actions of your PC. And as a result, the character of the PC is at the level of a sea sponge (But everything changes if you choose a character created by the developers )
2. RPG from Obsidian (old and new) - the dialogues are well written, they are interesting to read, but more than once I had a situation where I wanted to say / ask something specific, but this was not spelled out by the devs.
I understand that in the case of COC2 there is a factor of multiple writers. But the popularity of games in the second case is greater, and that says something.

 

[Shiny Boots]

if the player progresses the content far enough, it's reasonable for the author to assume some kind of investment in the content from the player. Is there necessarily so, even if you visit Brint every night? No, not really. But there's a reasonable expectation that the player might be assumed to be enamoured of Brint.

Oh I'm invested in Brint and care about the dude but that does not mean I am in romantic love with him. I don't actually think this is a bad thing. Just coming off of TiTs and CoC1 the lack of player agency took me off guard. I can understand if we're following a semi-prewritten character. I play visual novels so the experience isn't ruined for me. It was just surprising. I just know now not to have sex with Brint if I don't want to romance him.

Although thinking about it, I do want to point out that we're given the choice of telling Cait we only want things to be sex so it's surprising that none of the other characters(in the content I've played) have this option.

The second thing is basically that most of the crew is simply uninterested in writing mustache-twirling, comically villainous content.

Seeing as there is a big number 2 in the title I find this surprising because you can be a mustache-twirling, comically villainous character in the first game. Now I understand if this game is intending to go in a different direction. It has a different set of writers and I don't think there's anything wrong with not wanting to retread old ground. However, I don't think it's unfair to compare a sequel to its predecessor.

If the player progresses the content to that point, I generally assume that the player is interested in being a decent parent, because otherwise you wouldn't even be there in the first place.

I 100% agree but this excludes people who think Kiyoko's parenting is already decent but blah blah blah player agency. As I said I'm fine with what the writer wants, I'm just clarifying my initial points.

That's because the previous Champ, current Champ and Steele aren't your character. You (the player) are the brain parasite guiding their actions and choices, not necessarily their opinions and passions. Big dicks may or may not interest you, but it sure does interest all of the player characters. Also, the player characters morals will likely be slightly different, owning to growing up in rather alien cultures. A Bronze Age person and a Modern person would have very different sensibilities at the very least.

Oh I get this but we were given full control over the previous Champ and Steele. There was nothing pre-written about them. Steele actually has a mechanic centered around your choices which altered some of their dialogue and how people responded to Steele. The previous champ didn't have this mechanic so we were allowed to be inconsistent ourselves. However, if Champ 2.0 Electric Boogaloo is more of their own character then that's fine.

But on the other hand, there has not yet been a game where the PC dialogues were spelled out so that they were interesting and corresponded to what the player wants to say.

The Bauldur's Gate and Fallout games would disagree would you.

1. Original sin 2 - diological options do not say anything specific, just general actions of your PC. And as a result, the character of the PC is at the level of a sea sponge (But everything changes if you choose a character created by the developers )

Original Sin 2's dialogue options in my opinion were campy as all hell and I loved them for it. While there's less player agency, they make up for it with good comedy.

2. RPG from Obsidian (old and new) - the dialogues are well written, they are interesting to read, but more than once I had a situation where I wanted to say / ask something specific, but this was not spelled out by the devs.

Fallout New Vegas specifically would disagree with you lol(No I'm NOT comparing Corruption of Champions to New Vegas. I'm just joking around)

I understand that in the case of COC2 there is a factor of multiple writers. But the popularity of games in the second case is greater, and that says something.

I agree. It's why I wouldn't consider my gripes actual complaints and with some of the responses my gripes bother me significantly less.

 

[Animalistic]

Keep your posts to one please. Write everything you want write as one giant comment.

 

[Shiny Boots]

Keep your posts to one please. Write everything you want write as one giant comment.

Sorry about that. I'm having issues with this "multi-quote" thing. I haven't been on a forum in ages so I'm still learning that I no longer have to quote individually.

Edit: I merged it into one post. I'm learning~

 

[Tenalc13]

The Bauldur's Gate and Fallout games would disagree would you.

They are interesting to read, but more than once I had a situation where I wanted to say / ask something specific, but this was not spelled out by the devs.
Read carefully. I did not say that games do not represent a choice, I said that there were situations when I would like to act / say something differently, that is, not as presented in the game. And I'm not the only one.

 

[Wint3rRyd3r]

As much as I'd like dialogue options for some flavor text, it's just not realistic with all the different authors and contributors. Inconsistencies are gonna pop up no matter what and that'd be more obvious if dialogue options were added, on top of the extra work. Personally, I read the stuff and assume a response where I can for the roleplaying. But now that's it been touched on, I'm kinda curious how Kas's route is supposed to go if the team isn't too interested in evil content. The corrupt hive path causes us to lose out on a wholesome and effective party member. The flattening of the orc camp by one Benny Hill, while kinda deserved it at that point, costs a lot of content as well. Especially with Rags, who everyone (should) like. So far, all the corrupt or dick move actions block off more content than is added. So why commit to being corrupt and helping Kasyrra when it feels punished? As tempting as having indoor plumbing and air conditioning is, it seems a Kas victory would make everyone too horny and busy with orgies to enjoy it.

 

[Mizukage]

As much as I'd like dialogue options for some flavor text, it's just not realistic with all the different authors and contributors. Inconsistencies are gonna pop up no matter what and that'd be more obvious if dialogue options were added, on top of the extra work. Personally, I read the stuff and assume a response where I can for the roleplaying. But now that's it been touched on, I'm kinda curious how Kas's route is supposed to go if the team isn't too interested in evil content. The corrupt hive path causes us to lose out on a wholesome and effective party member. The flattening of the orc camp by one Benny Hill, while kinda deserved it at that point, costs a lot of content as well. Especially with Rags, who everyone (should) like. So far, all the corrupt or dick move actions block off more content than is added. So why commit to being corrupt and helping Kasyrra when it feels punished? As tempting as having indoor plumbing and air conditioning is, it seems a Kas victory would make everyone too horny and busy with orgies to enjoy it.

That is something I've wondered about, not really been interested in playing a corrupt character (did it in COC1 just to try it and it generally didn't do much for me) but I am kind of curious as to how it would even work for someone who sides with Kas given the aversion to hardcore corruption content.

 

[zagzig]

I realise a lot of work has gone into this and it seems to be by and large what people want and 'gripe' is a strong word when it's really more of a minor annoyance, but...

Now there's a lot of dialogue of Kinu going "mother, mother, hello." "mother, I didn't mean to worry you or mother" "mother, you know how mother is mother mother mother" and honestly I preferred it when she called my female heroes 'father'.

Also, I swear at least once she's called my male heroes 'mother'.

 

[Wint3rRyd3r]

I realise a lot of work has gone into this and it seems to be by and large what people want and 'gripe' is a strong word when it's really more of a minor annoyance, but...

Now there's a lot of dialogue of Kinu going "mother, mother, hello." "mother, I didn't mean to worry you or mother" "mother, you know how mother is mother mother mother" and honestly I preferred it when she called my female heroes 'father'.

Gotta disagree. I'm happy to not get misgendered as much as Kinu used to do. A little confusion is fine since context makes those sentences easier to understand. Yeah it'd be easier to remove those titles, but Tobs vision for the character may involve that way of speaking. And either way, I appreciate the work that has gone into fixing that. I do kinda see where you're coming from though. It can feel forced either way and can occasionally make the sentence need a reread. But that could happen with real life same sex couples. Art imitates life and all that jazz.

Child: Hey mom!
Mom: Yeah?
Child: No the other mom.

 

[zagzig]

Gotta disagree. I'm happy to not get misgendered as much as Kinu used to do. A little confusion is fine since context makes those sentences easier to understand. Yeah it'd be easier to remove those titles, but Tobs vision for the character may involve that way of speaking. And either way, I appreciate the work that has gone into fixing that. I do kinda see where you're coming from though. It can feel forced either way and can occasionally make the sentence need a reread. But that could happen with real life same sex couples. Art imitates life and all that jazz.

Child: Hey mom!
Mom: Yeah?
Child: No the other mom.

I appreciate it's better to have awkward sentences than to misgender people - me not caring about the wrong pronouns being a function of my cisgender privilege and all that. It reads a bit silly on the page though and I get why the author initially treated father as a gender-neutral term for not being the matriarchal head of the family.

That being said I'm certainly not asking the coders to go back and undo what they've been running around trying to retroactively add. It's the way it is now, it's probably for the better, it just bugs me a bit.

 

[Alypia]

Gotta disagree. I'm happy to not get misgendered as much as Kinu used to do. A little confusion is fine since context makes those sentences easier to understand. Yeah it'd be easier to remove those titles, but Tobs vision for the character may involve that way of speaking. And either way, I appreciate the work that has gone into fixing that. I do kinda see where you're coming from though. It can feel forced either way and can occasionally make the sentence need a reread. But that could happen with real life same sex couples. Art imitates life and all that jazz.

Child: Hey mom!
Mom: Yeah?
Child: No the other mom.

It's particularly awkward with Kinu because her personalities already condition the names that she assigns to her parents. There's no way Hime would adopt the solution of calling one parent Mom and the other Mommy, for example.

Another common solution with couples from different linguistic backgrounds is to use the name for "mom" or "dad" from each language. But in CoC2, we (rightly) limit the use of anything other than American English, so as to ensure maximum accessibility to the widest plausible audience. The foxes don't indulge in weebspeak outside of silly mode, so having Kinu ostentatiously use Japanese for Kiyoko's name and basically nothing else would be pretty weird.

The solution chosen was probably the most reasonable of all plausible solutions.

 

[Shiny Boots]

I never saw it as missgendering the Champion. I fathered Kinu in the sense of the verb so I always saw the use of "father" as a more polite term for "sperm-donor"

I think an easy fix without reverting(comparatively easy) is to have Kinu call Kiyoko "Mother" and to call feminine identifying Champions "Mama." Kinu is much less formal with the Champion who's willing to roll around in the dirt in the woods with her.

Also I know this would be a nightmare to recode and write up a dozen new scenes for but other than faster results, I never understood why only penis having Champions could help Kiyoko. I mean I get it wouldn't work when she's out of the Astral Plane but if I can give other fox people my essence from sucking their dick I don't know why she can't take my essence by my champion eating her out.

I mean the wake up scenes showing we had the results of a wet dream prove we aren't physically inseminating her. Backing this up is that we don't get any benefit from eating her meals or getting massages when there are examples of being given buffs in the waking world.

How would that knock her up? SHE doesn't even know how rooms magically clean themselves or how her pantry never empties. The Astral Plane taking bits of my soul and converting it into a new one isn't a far stretch especially since in lore having a soul is required to properly father or mother something without it becoming an imp.

Also because text can't convey tone and seeing what thread we're in I want to state that none of this is a gripe. I'm just spitballing ideas, not ranting out of frustration.

 

[Alypia]

Also I know this would be a nightmare to recode and write up a dozen new scenes for but other than faster results, I never understood why only penis having Champions could help Kiyoko.

When there is a question about "why not this", there can be several answers depending on the character and the author. But the one that is always valid is "because it cuts down dramatically on the variety of content that the writer has to handle". Variety is the death of depth.

This is why magicock-equipped Champions are slated to be able to conceive with Kiyoko: because that way, her existing content can therefore be used pretty much without alteration.

 

[Shiny Boots]

When there is a question about "why not this", there can be several answers depending on the character and the author. But the one that is always valid is "because it cuts down dramatically on the variety of content that the writer has to handle". Variety is the death of depth.

This is why magicock-equipped Champions are slated to be able to conceive with Kiyoko: because that way, her existing content can therefore be used pretty much without alteration.

Oh I know there's an answer to pretty much every every question I ask. I just don't know it if I don't ask them.

I've heard talk about "magicock" but I actually can't find any outlines for it. Just mentions of it. It'd be cool for my female runs. Like the use of hardlight in TiTs.

 

[Alypia]

Oh I know there's an answer to pretty much every every question I ask. I just don't know it if I don't ask them.

I've heard talk about "magicock" but I actually can't find any outlines for it. Just mentions of it. It'd be cool for my female runs. Like the use of hardlight in TiTs.

It's all good. Answering questions is why I'm here. I also dole out hugs.

As for magicock, it hasn't been implemented yet. But it is coming soon - without the trademark indicator. And it will be very nice to have for characters without donguses.

 

[Paradox01]

Variety is the death of depth.

Holy shit, this should be in every writer's signature for easy reference when someone asks why these games can't account for every niche kink imaginable.

 

[Animalistic]

I was never really confused when Hime Kinu referred to me as Mother. In context, it always is obvious. Even when referring to both to you and Kiyoko, since well, she only has 2 moms. Who she is thinking of when saying it does not really matter to me. And even if someone gets confused, I would still rather have that then trade it to how it was before.

And I mean, that is only the case for young/Hime kinu. I like it that Inari calls us Mom since it could be seen as her not respecting us. But only if we view it through lenses of Kitsune society. But I see it as her being more relaxed around us since she does not need to act to prim or proper. Not because she thinks that we are not worthy of that respect. It just means that she trust us enough to let her ground down when she is interacting with us. This is not to say that Hime is disrespectful. They just show it differently.

As for Kiyoko only wanting to get essence through dicking. While it is obviously only that way because the Observer does not want/does not have time to write other options. But even if we ignore that, I can picture Kiyoko dooming herself to eternal solitude just because she is not getting what she wants. She can be petty like that.
This is not me excusing his decision. This is just me looking for any type of in universe explanation.

 

[WolframL]

I've heard talk about "magicock" but I actually can't find any outlines for it. Just mentions of it. It'd be cool for my female runs. Like the use of hardlight in TiTs.

There isn't a design doc for them or anything but there is a scene in Cait's xpac doc if you're a backer that you can check out. You can also get an idea how they're going to work from the scenes currently in the game where characters have them; The Kitsune Geomancer has one and Miko and Mai share one. You can also see references to them as 'ghostlight' dildos, which seems like it's going to be the primary term.

We have a few mentions from Wsan that there are scenes planned for Brienne to use one on the Champ, so at least two companions will have ghostlight-specific content.

 

[Malpha]

Magi-cock will come with Evergreen's content update which is Soonish. Most scenes were future-proofed with them in mind, so they're a pure fem replacement that lets you access most penis only scenes, basically.

 

[Shiny Boots]

Holy shit, this should be in every writer's signature for easy reference when someone asks why these games can't account for every niche kink imaginable.

My only counter to this is stating it's an RPG. An open world western RPG to be specific.

As I said earlier(though under different context) I'm fine if the devs want to tell a specific story and I'm fine if the Champion has a pre-defined personality. I actively play JRPGs which for the most part do that and don't give me freedom to deviate and railroad you through their stories.

Though if I'm offered freedom to deviate then I expect to be able to deviate a lot. The fact that this is a text based game opens up pretty much every restriction that a AAA game has.

The only limitation is our imagination... as well as motivation. I'm not gonna give any of the devs or writers flak as I've personally experienced creative burn out and writer's block.

Though from what I've seen I would actually kind of prefer the game be more restrictive than it is. I pointed out, several times now, that the Champion forms their own opinions without player input so when player input is asked for I kinda feel that it hurts the narrative. I haven't messed with the Dark Knight mode(Because it's not all too easy to get to for me) so I can't speak on it but the default Champion is consistently presented as a morally good character. Our decisions often just let us decide if we're Lawful Good, Neutral Good, or Chaotic Good. Though when I'm randomly given an option that can be described as evil or evil leaning neutral it just takes me out of the experience.

The TL;DR of the situation is that I rather be given a restrictive but well told story or a unrestricted average told story.

The best examples I can use is the Fable series.

The first game was a binary good fighting against evil narrative. Allowing the player to do evil deeds in between made very little sense. The third game told a very specific story with characters who had pre-defined personalities and also focused on an ultimate evil end boss. You can't decide how the player will react to important story beats regardless of how much of a dick bag you were. Fable 2 however pulled it off rather well in my opinion. The final villain was just some dude. The player could decide for themselves if they wanted vengeance or justice. You get a wish after killing said dude, or letting someone else do it, that lets you solidify who you were. Do you sacrifice personal happiness to restore the lives of those lost? Do you act somewhat selfish and wish for your family back? Or do you tell everyone to fuck off and get an unreasonable amount of gold for your own personal pleasure?

CoC-2 feels very much like Fable 1 with the protagonist of Fable 3.

Now despite my huge wall of text I don't have any ill feelings towards the writers or devs and trust me I feel pretty guilty because I feel like I'm gonna come off as being overly critical no matter how I present my writings but every time I tried shortening this I felt like I wasn't saying everything I needed to say.

I'll also assure that I am under no delusions that the writers and devs cater to my specific desires. As is despite some gripes I love CoC-2 and I love the work that they've contributed to other games such as CoC-1 and TiTs. I only wrote this huge wall of text because I do love the game and I genuinely hope anyone reading this doesn't take this post to mean the opposite.

 

[Paradox01]

Snip

Please don't take what I said personally. I wasn't trying to pick on anyone with my comment. If you spend enough time around the forums and/or Discord, you see enough people crying when they can't do whatever they want exactly how they want to do it to whomever they want in these games to make you irritable whenever the topic comes up. And that's even when you're not one of the developers!

It's a very fine line to walk, variety vs depth, and I think the devs are doing a great job balancing both.

 

[Shiny Boots]

Please don't take what I said personally

Don't worry I didn't. I was more just responding to the concept.

If you spend enough time around the forums and/or Discord, you see enough people crying when they can't do whatever they want exactly how they want to do it to whomever they want

I am glad that I didn't come off that way. I really do NOT want to be seen that way from previous or future criticisms.

It's a very fine line to walk, variety vs depth, and I think the devs are doing a great job balancing both.

I agree like 90%. I did the second Winter Palace dungeon last night and oh boy does the variety offered harm the depth lol I'm not mad because it's hilarious. I can very much tell some options just weren't meant to be clicked on

 

[WolframL]

Oh, they're meant to be clicked on alright, it's just that there's one and only one route through to the end where the game won't suggest that maybe you could have done things differently afterwards. If they didn't want you picking the other options at least one, they wouldn't be so steamy.

And there's even some sneaky hidden variety in that dungeon if you try dealing with the named encounters via the Banishment power.

 

[Shiny Boots]

New gripe. Brienne's transformation says the scar heals itself but her art still has the scar.

Immersion broken 0/10, too much water.

 

[Savin]

And there's even some sneaky hidden variety in that dungeon if you try dealing with the named encounters via the Banishment power.

This is exactly why I made Banishment OHKO ghosts and it was exactly as fun to write as I expected.

 

[leomax]

Things That I think are neat. The new nails and make up stuff, that's really cool. I wish TiTs had that. It adds more personality to your character. Totally a thing you didn't have to add, and it made the game several times better.

The gripe has been answered and redacted